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Italian investigators last week reportedly opened a probe into decades-old allegations that foreigners paid to shoot civilians on a "sniper safari" during Sarajevo's siege in the 1990s. For those in the Bosnian capital, it reopened old wounds from the 1,425-day blockade that saw its streets become a killing ground, and resurfaced dark claims about wealthy killers paying to shoot them for amusement. Watch. 

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00:00Italian investigators last week reportedly opened a probe into decades-old allegations
00:07that foreigners paid to shoot civilians on a sniper safari during Sarajevo's siege in the 1990s.
00:15For those in the Bosnian capital, it reopened old wounds from the 1,425-day blockade
00:22that saw its streets become a killing ground
00:25and resurfaced dark claims about wealthy killers paying to shoot them for amusement.
00:31The Bosnian judiciary, which opened its own probe years earlier,
00:35says it is still verifying the allegations,
00:38and details in the current investigation remain scarce.
00:42Here is what we know about the harrowing claims of the so-called weekend snipers
00:47during the war that killed more than 100,000 people
00:51and left Bosnia and Herzegovina deeply scarred.
00:55In early April 1992, Bosnian Serb forces encircled Sarajevo,
01:06starting what would become the most prolonged siege in modern European history.
01:11Over the next four years, more than 11,500 people were killed in the city,
01:17including several hundred children, according to official Bosnian data.
01:21Many were shot by snipers positioned on hills surrounding the city.
01:26The Hague War Crimes Tribunal found that the sniper campaign had a single aim
01:30to terrorize Sarajevo's civilians.
01:33However, no individual sniper was ever held accountable,
01:37with all convictions directed toward the commanders in charge.
01:41The first report of the sniper safari emerged while the city was still under siege,
01:52published in the Sarajevo daily Oslo Bojenji.
01:55The front page of April 1st, 1995, ran the headline,
02:00Sniper Safari in Sarajevo.
02:02Beneath it were the lines,
02:04Chilling Testimonies of War Tourism,
02:06and a Serbian officer offered an Italian journalist the chance to shoot at an elderly woman.
02:12Another read,
02:14They prefer to shoot at children.
02:16The article cited Italian media reporting testimonies about weekend warfare in Sarajevo,
02:23as well as claims raised before the People's Court in Trento.
02:26No charges or criminal investigation were launched following the report,
02:31but Bosnian intelligence reportedly alerted their Italian counterparts.
02:36It would be decades before the allegations resurfaced.
02:45In 2022, Sarajevo's mayor, Benjamina Karic,
02:50who had been a young child during the war,
02:52watched a documentary that shocked her.
02:54Within days of watching the film Sarajevo Safari by Slovenian director Miran Zupanik,
03:01which aired at a festival in the city,
03:04she filed a criminal complaint with Bosnian state prosecutors,
03:08and then later with the Italian authorities.
03:11In the film and subsequent interviews,
03:13former Bosnia and Herzegovina Army intelligence officer Iden Subasic
03:18said he had first heard claims about paid sniper shoots from a captured prisoner during the war in 1993.
03:26Subasic, writing in Radio Sarajevo earlier this week,
03:30said he had come across notes from the interrogation
03:32with a Serb national who claimed Italian hunters had travelled with Serbian volunteers near Sarajevo.
03:39Subasic said they are rich men who will pay the Serb forces in Sarajevo to let them shoot at some Muslims.
03:47Following Karic's complaint in 2022,
03:50the Bosnian prosecutor opened a preliminary investigation,
03:54but no further details followed.
03:56This August, Karic filed an updated complaint with the Italian courts through their embassy in Sarajevo.
04:09Former judge Guido Salvini, who helped journalist Ezio Gavazzini build the case,
04:14told Italian media that
04:16a considerable amount of work has been done,
04:18largely by Gavazzini,
04:20drawing on local sources and witnesses from both sides.
04:24Salvini said they had also obtained documents from the Italian intelligence,
04:29which had officers in Sarajevo during the siege.
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